


Remember the way I held your hand (under the lamp post and ran)?

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [50]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Apologies, Brotp, Declarations Of Love, Forgiveness, Gen, John still feels guilty about calling Sherlock a machine, Platonic Soulmates, Reichenbach anniversary, Sherlock says three little words, he says quite a lot of words actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:26:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In AO3, this story is #50 in the Guitar Man universe. I thought maybe it was time for Sherlock to say three words that he's never really said to John Watson. They both know it, but sometimes it's good to articulate the truth.</p><p>*<br/>If you want to read the story in which John finally says those three words, it's now up at <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1041168">This Song Saved My Life</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Remember the way I held your hand (under the lamp post and ran)?

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Fall Out Boy's 'I’ve Got all This Ringing in my Ears'.

The case had not looked complex, but Sherlock had taken it on anyway, because of the date. He needed something else to think about. He certainly needed for John to have something else to think about. So they investigated the suicide that Greg Lestrade said gave him ‘a wonky feeling’ and that Anderson said ‘stinks to heaven but I can’t find the cow pat that’s making it smell’.

Sherlock gave Anderson a disdainful look at that grubby metaphor, but was slightly less scathing about the intellectual prowess of the Met because the whole crime scene was indeed as off as a bucket off putrefying fish guts.

(And don’t ask him to tell you about his knowledge of the putrefaction of fish guts, because he will tell you, and you will be sorry, and unable to eat either fish or mince or hear the term ‘finger food’ for months afterwards without thinking of it. John learned this the hard way.)

Sherlock, being Sherlock, found the source of the mysterious stink within minutes – it was the fact that the victim, who wore orthotic heels, as was _obvious_ from the shape of her ankles and the pattern of calluses along her feet and the receipt in her handbag, was in a pair of fancy six-inch stilettos that had never actually been walked upon, placed on her feet post-mortem as some kind of statement. The other receipt in the bag, and the remnants of glitter and sequins around the inside of her dress (some had fallen and clung to her legs and feet) and thereafter shown to be attached to her shaved pudenda gave a fuller picture. Because really, _who treats themselves to a vajazzling, John, and then commits suicide? Any woman sticking crystals and sequins to her genitalia in that fashion is surely feeling confident and powerful and not on the verge of despair, especially while wearing that colour lipstick._

The killer turned out to be close to home in more ways than one.  Moira Miller had been killed by her estranged and viciously jealous husband, Conrad Miller, a casual office assistant with NSY: someone who had known of Sherlock from before his fall from grace, who had disliked him then and resented him now. Someone who somehow still believed that Sherlock Holmes was an unredeemed fake and would never see through this clever crime and clever crime scene.

Well, Miller found out, also the hard way, that Sherlock Holmes was back, and brilliant, and while he may have been keeping a low profile over the year since his return, he was in no way a spent force. If anything, his light burned more brightly than ever.

“Fucking _freak_!” shrieked Miller as Greg Lestrade supervised his arrest, “How could _you_ ever understand what happened? I _loved_ her and she was _leaving_ me. I _loved_ her.”

"You have a very narrow, warped and significantly selfish definition of love,” Sherlock replied with a sneer.

“What would you know about it?” was Miller’s parting shot, “You fucking _machine_ , you stone cold fucking bastard _freak,_ what could you possibly know about love?”

Sherlock did not deign to reply, merely turning to John as the police car door slammed the murderer into silence.

John, Sherlock noticed immediately, had that tense, pursed look about his mouth, eyes slightly narrowed, back teeth grinding quietly. That word – _freak_ – tended to give John that look, but this was more intense. He was angry but also upset. At Miller. At what he’d said. But they’d heard things like that before, from criminals spewing bile because they’d been caught, nothing new there, so what…?

_Oh._

Oh, as if that mattered any more. As if it had even mattered at the time. As if the plan hadn’t been to drive John away from his side, so as to keep him safe.

As if John had not already apologised for that word, _machine,_ sending words and music out into the lonely darkness, where Sherlock had heard and understood.

_There’s no way_  
 _To take it back_  
 _Words spilled out_  
 _In a blind attack_  
 _Haunt me_

_The accusation inhabits my tongue_  
 _The bitter taste of being so wrong_  
 _Remorse is a hymn in a minor note_  
 _Of the ‘sorry’ stuck in my throat_

When it was safe enough, Sherlock had added his violin to the song and sent his forgiveness back – because that song of _sorry_ reached him at a dark hour, and hearing it, knowing that John now knew his callousness was a ploy, gave him strength.

John’s face was an ever-changing map of micro-expression, and Sherlock could read him even if he couldn’t always predict him or extrapolate him. Now Sherlock read regret and defiance and protectiveness and an echo of the old sorrow, of that lost year and everything that led to it.

“Dinner?” said Sherlock.

“What?” John dragged his attention back to the present. “Yeah. Yes. Good. Someplace good near here?”

“Excellent, as it happens, and still compliments of the grateful owner,” said Sherlock, waving a peremptory farewell to Lestrade and his team, “Angelo’s is a few streets away.”

John brightened at the name and they walked off, John saluting a brief acknowledgement to Lestrade who was saying “Paperwork tomorrow, yeah? Please? And Sherlock…” A pensive pause while Sherlock turned. Yes, Greg Lestrade knew the date, but was as reluctant to name it as they were. “Good work, today. Thanks. ”

“Ludicrously simple. Even Anderson nearly solved it.” A dramatic pause. “Nearly.”

Greg Lestrade laughed. “Yeah, well, maybe he’ll get it next time, eh?”

“I doubt it,” Sherlock muttered, but without the old venom. John’s mouth pulled in a wry smile at that, but kept his thoughts to himself as they walked down streets the doctor found increasingly familiar.

At the restaurant, Angelo cheerfully installed them in a quiet booth, bringing the flower and the candle, even though he was fully aware now that they were not a couple.

"Not a couple but a couple, eh?" was his genial, inevitable comment as he lit the little flame.

John grinned dutifully, though clearly in agreement. Sherlock ignored him. Instead, he regarded John with that steady, unblinking gaze of his that most people found so unnerving.

John used to find it unnerving. Not so much now. Although tonight he swallowed under its onslaught.

“Sherlock, what…?”

“It doesn’t matter, John.”

John did not pretend he didn’t understand. “Of course it doesn’t matter. He’s a murderous arsehole and a complete fuckwit. Nobody with any sense would listen to him.”

“I don’t mean him. I mean you. It doesn’t matter.”

John’s teeth clenched and he didn’t reply for a moment, and then: “It does. It did. I…”

“John. No. I received your apology, unnecessary though it was.”

“It was absolutely necessary.”

“John.”

“No, Sherlock. No. You have no idea how long I…” John pressed his mouth shut. His jaw worked, as though chewing on a dozen considered and discarded words to convey what he was thinking. “What I said that day,” he finally spat out, “Killed me to remember even before I found out you were still alive; before I found out why you’d even done it.”

“It’s forgotten.”

“Not by me. Not today, it isn’t. I could give you a dozen reasons why I said it, but none of them justify it. None of them.”

Instead of replying, Sherlock rested his elbows on the table, pressed his fingers and palms together in the old thinking pose.

“Miller had much to say about what I am.”

John was instantly bristling. “Sherlock, no, don’t tell me you’re thinking about anything that rat-fucking turd basket had to say.”

Sherlock grinned at John’s inventive swearing. “Not precisely, no. But it used to be said - by everyone, including me. Sherlock Holmes, sociopath. Incapable of feeling sentiment, let alone expressing it.”

John opened his mouth to vehemently counter the comment just as Sherlock seized both of his hands, and was surprised to silence. Sherlock held the back of John’s strong, nimble hands, examining the palms and then the fingers, with their calluses caused by guitar strings, and skin kept supple with lotion; the habit of a considerate doctor.

John watched him doing that, and he waited.

Sherlock’s thumbs ran over the back of John’s blunt, sturdy fingers.

“These hands have fought for me, John,” he said, “They have defended me. Once or twice they’ve struck me, when I asked it of you. They have ministered to my injuries. They have made tea for me, and meals…”

“That you decline to eat.”

“Even so. These hands have made music for me, especially over the long months when I called for those few moments each week. Your hands held the world together, John, when I felt that nothing could. They have steadied me; and sometimes they have let me go when I needed to be unencumbered.  And yet." He released John’s hands and turned his own, palm up, in the air between them. "I always feel them. Even when I need you to let go. Even the Year in Hell, some days I could feel your hand in mine, from that night we were handcuffed and running.”

Suddenly, Sherlock snorted at himself. "Nonsense, of course. Sentimental rubbish.” But his gaze held John’s steadily. “Except… not. The memory of it was always real. From the day we met, John, you have offered me the hand of friendship."

Sherlock took John’s left hand, squeezed it. “It is ridiculous for anyone to assert that I have not known love. You have been more than a friend, John.” His expression was now quite fierce. “You love me.”

John couldn’t help the smile that bloomed out of him. “Yes, I do.” Very matter-of-fact.

Sherlock made a small, satisfied noise. “So you will agree that it is ridiculous for you to hold on to this notion that there is anything to feel guilt for, or to forgive, in one small word spoken under duress and extraordinarily trying circumstances. You have written me a _song_ , John, and I have replied in kind. Let that be an end to it.”

John let out a huff of laughter, but it sounded relieved. “That’s an extremely complicated argument for telling me to pull my head in.”

“I wished to make the argument irrefutable. You love me, you confess it. How can that _blip_ in events have any power?”

“All right. I admit defeat. Logic trumps feeling like a shitty friend.”

“You are not a bad friend. Quite the opposite.”

“I concede the field to your superior reasoning.”

“Good.” Sherlock was still holding John’s hand in a strong grip. Now he squeezed it again. "One last thing. In view of that moron's narrow definitions of emotional engagement, I would like to be utterly clear on one thing. I do not take the narrow view John, and I also love you."

Sherlock nodded once, sharply, patted John's hand and put it down. He had the definite air of a man who had said all he wanted to say on the subject and expected the whole matter to be dropped on the instant.

John stared at Sherlock regarding the menu with fierce concentration. He swallowed, hard. Then he placed a hand over Sherlock’s, because letting Sherlock have the last word? That didn’t always happen.  

"I'm going to do something really sentimental now. So. Just. Shut up when I do it, okay?"

Sherlock lifted his gaze and maintained a thoroughly neutral expression as he met John’s eyes. “John.”

“No. Nope. Shut up. Here it comes.”

John leaned across the table, wrapped a hand over Sherlock's skull and drew him over to kiss his forehead; lips pressed to the skin he saw streaked with blood that terrible day, two years ago today. He still had nightmares sometimes, about the blood, about that falling figure. The memory still filled him with a flutter of dread, even knowing everything now, even with Sherlock seated right beside him.

He pressed his forehead to Sherlock's temple.

"Not a word," he whispered.

Sherlock moved slightly to bump their foreheads gently, like a friendly cat.

Finally, with a sigh, John patted him on the arm and sat back. The women at the next table gave them soppy looks, which made Sherlock roll his eyes and made John laugh.

Later, after pasta and salad and too much red wine – and Sherlock kept stealing spoonfuls of John’s tiramisu without even trying to be sly about it – John grinned.

“You,” said John, with a slight slur, “Are a marvel, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Marvel,” agreed Sherlock muzzily, “Marvelling marvel. Marvellous.” Sherlock seemed to be testing whether or not he could say the words. Then he fixed John with a penetrating stare. “ _You’re_ a marvel.”

“No. You. You’re the marvel.”

“We are a pair of marvels,” asserted Sherlock.

“Like weasels,” agreed John, taking to the compromise, “Only maaaarvels.”

“You are mixing up your taxonomies, you mad bugger,” said Sherlock cheerfully.

“Yes. We are mad buggers, also.”

Well pleased with this conclusion, they allowed smiling, solicitous Angelo to guide them out into the street, hail a taxi and send them on their way home to Baker Street.

John tilted sideways and fell into a doze, head resting on Sherlock’s shoulder.

Sherlock dropped his cheek to rest against John’s hair and closed his eyes, content. His hand, where John had held it, and his forehead, where he’d bestowed his ridiculously sentimental kiss, felt warm.

Song lyrics drifted through his mind, in John’s voice at first, and then his own.

_If I’m conducting light_  
 _What is it makes my darkness bright?_  
 _Because I am, I am, I am illuminated._

And Sherlock knew, as he’d known for some time now, that the illumination went both ways.

 


End file.
